


two birds

by hulklinging



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mindfuck, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7079602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I almost believe you," Lola says with a smile. "That's too bad. If you're telling the truth, we didn't really need the one in the trunk."</p><p>The ride to Baltimore takes on another level of horror as Neil fights with thoughts of who is in the trunk, and who he hopes it isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two birds

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes. This idea wouldn't leave me alone, sorry.
> 
> It sticks pretty close to canon in the beginning, so if a line sounds familiar it's because it is taken right from the book.

When Andrew approaches, Neil's skin starts to crawl. He hates it, hates the attention Andrew is getting with every step closer, with the questioning look on his face.

Neil can't draw this out. He doesn't want the eyes on him to see affection and think that he's gone and told a teammate more than he should. He just has this moment, this last chance to take everything Andrew has given to him (a key drawn into a palm, warmth thawing a part of him he thought was ashes, promises and honesty and knowing what it feels like to win) and fit into a few small words.

He folds up all the parts of himself that had grown since he'd come here, and tries to put all of him into this last goodbye.

"Ich danke dir. Du warst toll."

It isn't enough, but it's all he had. He feels emptier after, and Andrew's face is suspicious. Neil realizes belatedly that he shouldn't have said it in German. Romero and Jackson don't speak German, they won't like that they don't know what he said. Allison is shooting them a weird look too, but he doesn't want to look away from Andrew. He knows the moment he looks away, this will be properly over.

Wymack is motioning them out, though, which means that Neil has to turn his back on his teammates and walk away. He assumes Andrew follows behind him, but he doesn't let himself look behind to check. He focuses on Romero's back and wonders how they'll do this. The closer they get to the bus, the harder it will be to make up an excuse to get Neil away from the rest of the team. He tries to keep his breathing under control, can feel Andrew's stare hot on the back of his neck.

 _I'm fine,_ Neil tries to project, and hopes that the lie is less obvious when he doesn't voice it.

Then the first bottle flies, the crowd around them erupts in violence, and Neil lets his racquet and bag fall as Romero carries him through the mob. He tries to let everything that is Neil Josten fall away too, but the identity clings like spider webs. All he can do is hope that it's enough. They won't know where he's gone, and he doesn't want them to. But he wants them to know he didn't leave willingly.

 _I said I wasn't going to run anymore,_ he thinks. _I tried not to. I'm sorry._

As soon as they hit the parking lot, Neil starts to struggle. Romero drops him, and he thinks for one fleeting second that he has a chance, but he's just using his now free hands to grab Neil's arm, twist it enough that Neil's vision flashes white. He stumbles, and knows that if he tries to fight any more his arm is going to dislocate.

"You won't get away with this,"he manages to get out. "My teammates will know I'm missing. They can't leave New York without me."

"They'll be busy for a while. Your coach will spend half the night trying to figure out which ER the lot of you were taken to. I'll be surprised if he even realizes he's short one until it's far too late."

With that, he's pushed into the back of a patrol car. Lola is waiting for him, and his vision narrows until it's just her. Her face still familiar, even after all this time. His memory had dulled the cruel tilt of her smile, or maybe she's just spent this time growing meaner. She looks like she could unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole. He doesn't take his eyes off of her as he fumbles for the door handle behind him. It's locked, of course.

"Junior's all grown up," Lola purrs, and Neil feels like he might be sick. "Where's Jackson?"

"Cleaning up," Romero grunts. There's the sound of what might be running feet, and then flesh meeting flesh. The riot is getting worse. Neil turns to look, but Lola's hand shoots out to grab his face. Her nails dig into his cheeks as she keeps him looking at her. After a moment, the trunk slams, and Jackson gets into the driver's seat. He shuts the door with a little more force than necessary, and Lola releases Neil. Neil can see the beginnings of a black eye in the rearview mirror, and feels fierce satisfaction. He hopes it was a Fox fan that did it.

With the sirens on, Jackson manoeuvres them expertly through the post-game traffic, while Lola keeps Neil pinned with her hungry gaze.

"I've seen that face a lot lately. People are saying you're some rising star. Cute. Looks like the spotlight got a little bright for you, though. You didn't really make this hard, Junior."

Romero twists to look at Neil. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing!" Neil says, maybe a little too defensively, because Romero's eyes narrow. "Do I look like an idiot?"

"What about that bit at the end?" That's Jackson. "The German."

"Said thanks."

Lola's hands are back in his space, one nail tracing the tattoo on his cheek. "And the other branded one?"

"Kevin?" Neil tries to keep his breathing even. "The Raven's pet. He knows better than to say anything."

"I almost believe you," Lola says with a smile. "That's too bad. If you're telling the truth, we didn't really need the one in the trunk."

The world drops out underneath him. There's a ringing in his ears, and he has to replay what Lola said twice over just to make sure he heard her right.

"What?" He manages to get out, finally. The words _cleaning up_ are echoing in his head, and no, Lola's just fucking with him, why would they grab some nobody and double their risk? That doesn't make any sense. "You're lying."

"Oh, Nathaniel." Lola's voice is coated in fake sympathy. _Cleaning up._ "Didn't your mother warn you about making friends?"

His lips are already forming the next question, which is _Who_ , but he bites his tongue instead. He's not interested in Lola's games. There's no reason for Jackson to put himself on the line when they had already secured him.

 _Alive or dead,_ he can't help but think. _Who is it, and are they alive or dead?_

He doesn't say anything, and Lola grins and begins to tell him exactly what she's going to do with his body once he's dead. Piece by piece, step by step. Try as he might, he can't block it out. She's talking a little too loud for the small car, and his traitor mind supplies a slideshow to accompany it. Like he'd fast-forwarded to the end of his own life. Not that he had much longer to wait, really. He clenches his fist and bites the inside of one cheek and tries to keep the fear that is growing inside him off of his face. He doesn't want Lola to see.

Unfortunately, she is more snake than human, and she licks her lips like she can taste it in the air.

They hit Maryland pushing ninety, and then peel off the highway next to an empty car. Neil is marched to the Cadillac, encouraged into the passenger seat by the barrel of Romero's gun. Then there's cuffs around his ankles, his arms cuffed behind him and even worse, Lola too. He doesn't like her out of his sight. It's somehow worse than her stare.

Romero, still standing outside his door, shrugs.

"Might as well," he says, an answer to a question Neil must have missed Jackson asking. Lola leans past him to press a button on the dashboard, and he hears the trunk pop.

_She was lying she's lying she's lying_

His thoughts are interrupted by the trunk falling shut, and Neil has a moment of weakness as he thrashes against his cuffs, slamming his head back against the headrest. As fast as the moment came on it's gone again, and Neil stills with nothing to show for his outburst but sore wrists and Lola's laughter.

Romero gets into the front seat. Jackson must be staying with the patrol car. The car starts, and they're racing towards Baltimore again. Every mile ticks away like a clock, like a timer getting closer and closer to zero. And behind him, cold metal presses against his fingertips.

He tries to jerk his hands away, keep them closed, anything. All that does is make Lola laugh as she forces his fingers open again.

"If you're going to scream, do it nice and loud, so your friend can hear you."

The part of his brain he's trying to ignore says _Alive, they're alive, who's in the trunk?_

She starts to cut. Shallow, more terrifying than painful, if only because he knows this is just Lola getting started. The knife bites deeper, and he can feel himself start to lose control. He closes his eyes and he's back in Evermore, and he can't take this, he can't. "Stop."

"That's not screaming."

There's blood running down each finger. He's shaking. _If I do, who will hear me?_ "Stop it."

She does, and he manages a full breath before she's sliding up to join them in the front. Her knife follows the path of her fingernails earlier, tracing the brand on his cheek.

"It's amusing you thought that being part of Riko's matched set would keep you safe."

She misses the mark, but he doesn't feel like telling her that. He keeps his mouth shut. His team would be proud.

His team, down ~~two~~ one, trapped in a riot. His fault.

"Well, we won't let your homecoming be marred by this stain." She taps Romero's shoulder, and he presses a button on the dashboard. Neil didn't want to know. He doesn't want to see what's coming next, but he can't help it. He watches as Romero passes the dashboard lighter to his sister, and he loses the battle with silence.

He means to tell her how twisted she is, how sick, but what comes out of his mouth is "Who is it?"

He's got Lola's knife drawing a line down one cheek and the dashboard lighter hovering over the other. Lola's grin is all he can see, and he focuses on keeping himself here, in this chair, in this moment, because he wants to send his brain far away but he knows if he closes his eyes he'll think about how dark it must be in that trunk. Is it Dan, who's afraid of the dark? He hopes it's not Dan. It can't be Dan, it isn't Dan.

"Telling you would ruin the surprise, don't you think?"

"Fuck you."

"How about I make you a deal." She leans close, her voice lowering to a whisper, and it's just like the nightmares that have been chasing him for all these years. "If you're good and you sit still, maybe I can tell you who it isn't. And then you can feel relieved, or disappointed, and then beat yourself up over whichever one it is. How does that sound?"

She doesn't give him a chance to answer. His face is burning, his face is splitting open and he's falling apart. This is the smell that haunts him, this burning flesh, and here he is, just like his mother, turning into ashes in a stolen car.

The lighter is gone but he can still feel it on his skin. Lola is talking but he's too busy forcing air into his lungs to catch anything. He knows they won't actually let him die here but can't help but imagine it, his body stuck to the seat beneath him. He knows exactly what sound his skin will make, ripped from the melted plastic. Just like his mother, and wouldn't that be fitting?

He gets another line down his cheek for his panic, and ends up curled up on himself. He searches for anything, anything at all to ground himself, and his mind grabs onto Exy, but that just makes him jump back to his team.

They wouldn't have taken Kevin. That would have been too much like a declaration of war. It's not Kevin.

Knowing it's not his line partner doesn't make him feel better at all.

Click.

His body reacts before his mind, flinching and pulling uselessly against the cuffs around his wrist. By the time his brain catches up, the lighter is in Lola's hands again.

"It's not Kevin," he gets out.

"Do I look like an idiot?" Lola parrots his words back at him. One teammate safe. Seven more to go. He doesn't let himself think about who he hopes it is. He doesn't know. He couldn't pick.

 _Aaron,_ his brain supplies. But he remembers Andrew, covered in blood, reaching for his brother. No. No he won't... he can't take whatever they are, whatever this is _du warst toll_ away from Andrew and his brother too.

It can't be Aaron. It can't be.

It has to be someone, though.

Lola's talking again. Asking questions about his mother. He doesn't want to think about his mother, not with the smell of burnt flesh filling the car. He tells her his mother's dead, but she doesn't believe him, and when she chokes him he finds himself hoping that she lets him pass out.

But his luck has all run out. That's what got him here in the first place. That, and his own stupidity, thinking he could stop running and still stay ahead of the ones chasing him. Looking into hazel eyes and believing in the protection that they offered.

_What if it's-_

_No. It can't be._ He doesn't even let himself think it.

He went where Kevin did. Kevin was safe. He would be too.

He would want Neil to fight.

So he does, even as he tells them about Seattle, down the coast to California, a state made of burning. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, lies falling off him in layers as Romero takes a turn and there's a whine in the air that he doesn't realize is him until the lighter is gone again.

"Make me believe you," Lola asks. Neil remembers his mother saying that, drilling him on a new name, a new mask.

"She's dead, she's dead, she's dead."

It's the truth but it's not what she wants to hear.

"What if we pulled over and put your friend in the front seat?" She's got one hand in his hair so he can't pull away from her. "Would you stick with that answer while I burned holes into their pretty face, too?"

Neil thinks about Allison, her perfect hair and makeup as good as any Exy gear. Her armour, flawless and fierce. Her hands, surprisingly gentle as they cover up his bruises after Christmas. He imagines all of it on fire.

"Yes," he forces out. "It's the truth."

Lola clicks her tongue, and reaches for the lighter before settling back in her seat. She's out of sight, but they're still on the road, which is the most important thing. She's rolling up his sleeves.

"Don't, Lola." He's begging, now. "Please."

"How about this, Junior?" She drags her nails down his newly exposed skin. "You answer my questions to my satisfaction, and you get to stay in the front seat. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Have you decided who you hope it is, yet?" Her knife bites into the soft skin right below the crook of his elbow. "Who's your least favourite teammate?" She draws a line all the way to his wrist. "I hope they're fun. I hope they hate you for being the one to get them killed."

Neil thinks about Renee, sweet soft spoken Renee who believed in people no one else did. Renee, who had worked so hard to make sure she didn't die at the end of a knife, and then given up her own. Renee, who was so close to being a success story.

"That's not how it works."

"Sure it is, kid. Think about who you don't want it to be. Keep thinking until you've only got one person left. That's the person you hope is going to be dying with you."

When she stops talking to burn another circle into his skin, he's almost glad.

She gets to the real questions after that, asking about life with the Foxes. Sometimes, after an answer that mentions someone by name, she'll stop, wonder out loud if that's what Jackson said their name was. Neil clings to his story as best he can, trying to keep the details straight. He won't stumble again. He won't cost someone else their life.

He catches himself thinking _I wish it was Seth,_ and he hates himself for it. Seth isn't here because Neil already got him killed. He killed Seth and he's twisted up enough inside to wish he could do it again.

He hates how weak Neil is. With each cut and burn, he lets Neil fall away. He doesn't have the strength to hold onto him anymore, the lies that almost came true, the identity that killed him. He imagines the feel of that key in his palm, and then lets go of it all. This is Nathaniel Wesninski, clinging to consciousness as he gets closer and closer to home. It's a home Neil Josten never knew, and he's glad of that. Glad Neil can die without ever having to see his father again.

"If you say who you're hoping it is, I might just let you breathe for a few minutes," Lola purrs. He won't say it out loud. He doesn't have an answer.

"Suit yourself."

He thinks someone is screaming. It might even be him.

________

In the darkness of the trunk, his teammate hears it, and fists clench. They've only managed to catch bits and pieces of the conversation. Whether it's a drug or a concussion slowing their thoughts and weighing down their limbs, it's making it very difficult to understand anything that is happening in the car in front of them. They had woken up to laughter and Neil's pleading, and that added to the terror of the confined space enough to push them to a frenzied violence, bloodying their hands against the unforgiving walls. The ache in their knuckles grounds them, as they listen to the rumble of the engine, eating up the miles and bringing them further and further from where they're supposed to be. And Neil's voice, the only familiar thing, belligerent even when shaking with pain.

The screaming is the worst part (second worst, but they won't think about that). They curl in on themselves in the dark, and try to remind themselves that screaming means he's still alive. They force air through their lungs, and every time the screaming halts or stutters, so too do their breaths.

And as Neil lets himself die in the front seat, his teammate holds onto him with everything they have.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to yell at me you can do so [here!](http://hulklinging.tumblr.com/)


End file.
